Measuring dorsal column cross-sectional area

SCT
1

Hello,

I have managed to measure the white and grey matter area separately by going through the London course material. I was wondering if there is any way to measure the area of the dorsal column (or any other column of the spinal cord) individually as well, using the same sequences (similar to T2*-weighted images). The atlas-based analysis section in the course material gives some instructions on MTR, but not on cross-sectional area measurements.

Best wishes
Afagh

2

Hi,

You can always apply sct_process_segmentation on any binary or probabilistic mask to compute CSA and other morphometric measures, but be aware that this will not give you the true dorsal column CSA, but only the CSA of the PAM50 dorsal column scaled to your subject’s spinal cord. In fact, up-to-date, there is no way to “visualize” white matter tracts individually in vivo.

Best,
Julien